7 CIA officers slain in Afghanistan blast will get full military honors

President Obama is scheduled to attend a Friday memorial service for seven CIA officers and contractors killed in Afghanistan in December.

The service is to be held Friday morning at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

The suicide bombing on a CIA base in Afghanistan last week was carried out by a Jordanian doctor who was an al-Qaeda double-agent, Western intelligence officials have said.

The bomber was within seconds of being searched by security contractors when he detonated his explosives, a former intelligence official with knowledge of the incident told CNN in January.

Initial reports said that the attack, which killed seven CIA officers, was carried out by a member of the Afghan National Army.

Two of those killed were contractors with private security firm Xe, formerly known as Blackwater, a former intelligence official told the Press. The CIA considers contractors to be officers.

U.S. and Jordanian officials say the bomber, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, had been recruited as a counterterrorism intelligence agent, despite concerns over his extremist views. He was being used in the hunt for a senior al Qaeda figure.

Al-Balawi was arrested by Jordanian intelligence more than a year ago. He had moderated the main al-Qaida chat forum before his arrest and was known online as Abu Dujanah al-Khurasani.

The Jordanians believed that al-Balawi had been successfully reformed and brought over to the American and Jordanian side. They set him up as an agent and sent him to Afghanistan and Pakistan to infiltrate al-Qaida.

Reva aida’s main chat Bhalla, director of analysis for the international intelligence company STRATFOR, said in January that the suicide bombing was “a huge blow, symbolically and tactically.” The bombing eliminated so many CIA officers, who can take years to become ingrained in the region.

In addition, the attack showed the ability of the Taliban to penetrate perhaps the most difficult of targets–a CIA base, she said.

Former CIA official Robert Richer called the bombing the greatest loss of life for the agency since the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed eight agents.